Federico "Fred" Hinojosa was a Justice on the Texas Court of Appeals, 13th District, for more than fifteen years before his retirement on January 1, 2007. While on the Court of Appeals, he wrote more than a thousand opinions in all areas of the law. He now sits by assignment as a Visiting Senior Judge in the District Courts of South Texas in the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region.

Judge Hinojosa is recognized by the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association as a Credentialed Distinguished Mediator. He received comprehensive training in Mediation and advanced training in Family Mediation from the A. A. White Dispute Resolution Center of the University of Houston Law Center. He also received Advanced Mediation training from the Association of Attorney-Mediators and the Texas Association of Mediators. He received training in domestic violence from the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and in "Battering Intervention and Prevention Programs" from the Texas Council on Family Violence.

Judge Hinojosa was born and reared in Edinburg, Texas. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Pan American College (now The University of Texas – Pan American) in 1969. In 1970, he enlisted in the United States Air Force and was assigned to work at the National Security Agency as a Spanish linguist. After receiving an Honorable Discharge in 1974, he enrolled at the University of Houston Law Center. He received his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree in May 1977, and was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in June 1977.

Judge Hinojosa had a general civil practice in Houston from 1977 to 1981. He returned to Edinburg in 1981 to work as a child support attorney for the Texas Department of Human Resources (now the Child Support Division of the Attorney General’s Office). In 1983, he became a felony prosecutor in the Hidalgo County Criminal District Attorney’s office. In 1984, he became an associate in the litigation section of the McAllen law firm of Atlas & Hall. In 1987, Judge Hinojosa joined the McAllen litigation law firm of Lewis, Pettitt, Skaggs & Welch as a partner, and the firm name was changed to Lewis, Pettitt & Hinojosa. On November 1, 1991, he was appointed by former Texas Governor Ann W. Richards to the 13th District Court of Appeals. He was elected to the Court of Appeals in 1992 and re-elected in 1994 and 2000.

Judge Hinojosa is a member of the Texas Association of Mediators, American Judicature Society, American Board of Trial Advocates, the State Bar of Texas, and the College of the State Bar of Texas. He is also a member of the Hidalgo County, Cameron County, and Corpus Christi Bar Associations. He is a Sustaining Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, a member of the Judicial, Litigation (Council Member 2010-2014), Family, Appellate, and Alternative Dispute Resolution Sections of the State Bar of Texas.

Judge Hinojosa is listed in Who’s Who in American Law, Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World.